4 1/2 stars Tithe's inner blurb states that it is a young adult fantasy tale written by a brand new author with an exciting and imaginative voice and, for a change, the raves are true! If you're into darker edged fantasy, where the faeries are more likely to wound tender flesh than sprinkle one with faery dust, where sex, violence and various debaucheries are all part of a typical day in the faery kingdom, then do yourself a favor and buy a copy of Tithe. It's the perfect book to chase away the mid-winter blahs. Big thanks to Preeti, my reader friend ... for bringing this deliciously dark book to my attention.Kaye is a tough, resourceful, street smart sixteen year old. As the daughter of a flighty, small-time rock singer who rarely stays in one place for more than six months at a time Kaye's life has been filled with chaos. When her mother is attacked after a performance she decides to temporarily move them back into her mother's home. As a child, Kaye loved living in her grandmother's old house and believed she had faery friends.Kaye has always been able to see things other cannot but it's not until she returns to her grandmother's home that she begins to discover exactly how different she is. In the woods Kaye meets an injured young man with pewter hair and pointy ears named Roiben who requests her help, reluctantly promises her payment and then quickly disappears. Though Kaye refuses to be anything like her worthless mother and will never pine away after a man she can't seem to get thoughts of Roiben out of her head.Soon after the weird encounter with Roiben, Kaye discovers her imaginary world is not quite so imaginary after all. After locating two of her old faery friends she discovers that she is fated to play an important (and possibly deadly) role in helping her friends remain free from the warring faery kingdoms (the Seelie and the Unseelie) who want to enslave them. Kaye's somewhat unstable world becomes even more-so when she enters into a fantasy world filled with magic and dark beauty and the irresistible but terribly confusing dark knight named Roiben who may or may have not killed one of her friends.Tithe is a real page-turner. I especially enjoyed its bleak, but never overwhelmingly depressing, look at life from a jaded sixteen year old point of view. Even before Kaye discovers the world of faery her world isn't that of your typical teenager. Because of her upbringing and lack of parental support she's got an edge about her that makes her refreshingly interesting. She smokes, talks tough, and holds her own against the flakey, ineffective adults and self-absorbed teens that inhabit her world. Though she's self-reliant and insightful she's still a teenager prone to emotion, moments of selfishness and wicked thoughts of revenge. Her faults, as well as her strengths, are the reason I enjoyed her character so much. Her conflicted feelings for Roiben -- is he tortured hero or cold-hearted fiend? -- are also another fascinating aspect of the story. Their emerging romance manages to be sensual, touching and anything but the same-old, same-old. If you're tired of angelic, nauseatingly good heroes and heroines don't worry because you won't find any here!Though I enjoyed this book thoroughly I did spot a few minor problems (sorry, I can't shut off the nitpicker inside me). With the exception of Kaye, nearly all of the secondary characters aren't given enough space to become very well defined. This is one case where I think a longer book may have made for a near perfect book (and I almost never say such things). Kaye's troubled friend Corny and especially Roiben would've benefited from more space to become fully fleshed out characters. I guess we can hold out hope for a prequel all about Roiben. There is also some troublesome dialogue here and there that needed a little tweaking. At times I felt like I'd walked in on the middle of a conversation and missed a sentence or two somewhere along the way. Other times I felt like the characters must be reading each others minds because their dialogue made little sense to me. Despite this the story moves very quickly, is imaginative, entertaining and I wish it hadn't had to end quite so soon. I cannot wait to see what author Holly Black comes up with next.With its adult language, sexuality, violence and alcohol consumption "Tithe" reads more like an adult novel featuring young protagonists and because of this I'd recommend it for the "older" young adult ...
I ended up reading this book by accident. It was recommended to my 14 year old, Gini. She began the book and then brought it to me saying that she didn't feel it was appropriate for kids and that she, personally, had no interest in a heroine who consistently made such poor life choices. Well! I decided to read it to see what the deal was. This book was recommended for kids 14 and up and Gini has read books that were definitely adult reading level and she LOVES faery. The problem with this book for Gini (and I am proud of her for it) is that the girl, Kaye, who is the main character, as well as her friends, smoke, drink, sneak around, fool around, and generally make all the choices that parents hope their children will avoid. Gini loves books and movies with really strong female characters. Ultraviolet, Alias, Charmed, Dragonlance, Bones and Sarah Connor Chronicles are some of her favorites. She just really didn't like the idea that a 16 year old who was so "messed up" and misguided would be turned into a heroine of faery. She appreciates that the best heroines have flaws to overcome but this just didn't work for her.Now! All that that being said, I finished the book and for an adult with the grace of age and perspective, this book is a fun, light read. This poor kid who has pretty much raised herself and her mother could very well end up the same dead-end mess that her mother has but she doesn't. She discovers something very special within herself. She ends up showing a lot of character and courage. The teens dealt with in the book are not the teens that I have guided my girls to become or to identify with but those kids are out there and they have the same potential and beauty within them. It was really cool to talk to Gini about why she didn't like this character and how the character developed without requiring her to read something she objected to and without glorifying the type of kid portrayed in the book. This is just my opinion folks so take it for what it is worth to you! I would not have this book in the hands of anyone under 16 and even at 16, my girls would probably not read this type of material if for no other reason than the frequency of the "f" word which we don't appreciate in our home, hearts or heads and the underage drinking and sexuality. But if you do have a child who wants to read it and you don't like to censor your child's reading (and I do very little of that, believe it or not - I teach them the principles and let them apply them, which Gini did very well) then this book is a good opportunity to talk about the choices the kids in the book make. Why it may or may not be a good idea for an author to portray a young person with such poor judgement as a hero or heroine (I thought it was a great idea!) and how people can turn their lives around no matter how dismal and dead-end they seem to be.
What do You think about Tithe (2004)?
Ugh. I don't know where to start with this one so I'm gonna jump right in. I didn't like it. It was all just a raging bunch of WTF?! for me. I mean, it was random. My brain hurts so this isn't going to be a very coherent review.Before I go to my detailed ravings, it's best if I gave a brief overview of what this book was about. It's the story of Kaye, a changeling, who was put under a glamour to hide her true green-skinned self and lives with her rockstar wannabe "mother", Ellen. Her life ultimately changes when her mother was almost murdered in a pathetic, lame excuse of an attempted stabbing, and having nowhere else to go, they return to their home town.Here, Kaye suddenly finds herself reunited with her childhood "imaginary" friends, who needs her to help them plot against the unseelie court and win the freedom of the faeries. NarrativeIt was painful. It's like listening to a child with ADHD jumping from one thing to the next. Everything seemed so rushed that you don't get a single connection to the story.First example of it popped up right there in the freaking prologue.Frank, Stepping Razor's drummer, grabbed Lloyd's arm. Lloyd had just enough time to punch Frank in the face before other patrons tackled him and somebody called the police.By the time the cops got there, Lloyd couldn't remember anything. He was mad as hell, though, cursing Ellen at the top of his lungs. The police drove Kaye and her mother to Lloyd's apartment and waited while Kaye packed their clothes and stuff into plastic garbage bags. Ellen was on the phone, trying to find a place for them to crash."Honey," Ellen said finally, "we're going to have to go to Grandma's."So a bit of background info, that's the scene where Lloyd, the dude Kaye's mum is dating, the dude they live with -- tried to kill Kaye's mum. And that is literally the single paragraph where it is mentioned. I don't know about you, but if my boyfriend suddenly lost his marbles and tried to kill me, I'd be in a state of hysteria. I'd be wondering what the flying fook was that all about?!? I'd be dedicating at least an extra paragraph or two to explore the psychological damage that's done me, and probably wrap things up a little smoothly.But nope; not this. Apparently they're happy with "We're going to have to go to grandma's." and the next scene, they're living with Nana and Kaye's off to some rave like some whacko never tried to gut her mama. Like wtf is wrong with you people?!And this sort of thing continues persistently throughout the rest of the book. I guess what I'm trying to say is the narrative came out as choppy and rushed; it was emotionally detached from the readers, like an exposition of events. This was happening, and then this, this followed by a whopping amount of this. CharactersAnd this is the second reason why I simply couldn't like Tithe. I just couldn't relate - or even respect - any of them.I'm sorry, Black, was I supposed to root for Kaye and her friends? Was I supposed to care (view spoiler)[when Janet died (hide spoiler)]
—Amanda
Tithe is a difficult book for me to rate and review. While reading this, I couldn't help but feel that I would have had a much more enthusiastic reaction to it had I read it when it was first published. But now, nine years later, protagonist Kaye comes off as slightly Mary Sue and Tithe doesn't quite stand up to some other YA books with a urban fantasy/paranormal twist. Furthermore, this book involved a lot of older teen issues (such as drinking, sexuality, skipping school) yet the fantasy aspect seemed almost as if it were written for a younger audience. But then again, perhaps this was mind blowing when first released? Again, I can't help but feel that my reading experience would have been so much different had I read this years ago. Or had I read it as a teen myself. (Granted, this book didn't exist then ;))I'll definitely continue reading Holly Black, but not sure that I'll continue with this series.
—Megan
What I remember from Tithe are the characters and several extremely vivid scenes from the book. The sun "bleeding into the ocean as if it had cut its wrists", as Kaye described it, her friend Corny and his gay-fantasy fairy who wore the iron crown, his cape of thorns, and the fruit he had Corny eat that created a scene of pure humiliation for the boy. The carousel scene, where Kaye first accidentally enchanted a friend of hers into loving her, and made a broken carousel horse rise on non-existent feet. The first time you meet the silver haired elf, Robyn.All in all the book was good, and though the plot was predictable enough, it's an extremely good read for anyone not looking for a horribly complex story line.
—Laura
